Castamere: The Story of Tywin and Joanna Lannister
by GilraenDernhelm
Summary: Part 7 of 'Be The Lightning In Me.' Having spent a bit of time inside Tywin Lannister's head during the course of this series (and having rather enjoyed how fiendishly difficult he is to write), I've decided to write a prequel to parts 1 to 6 about Tywin and Joanna, to see what sort of person he was before her death and to take a look at what their relationship might have been.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

It was raining. The sea swirled about his knees like molten glass, transparent in his grief, boiling like the tears of the twisted, gnarled child in his arms who screamed out his existence to the heavens, mocking him like a curse from the gods.

Tywin looked over his shoulder at the cliffs beneath Casterly Rock that loomed grey and mighty above him, and for a moment the sun broke through the clouds at the memory of two children, Joanna and himself, loitering casually at their edge.

'If you haven't jumped in the next three seconds, _I'm _going to!' Joanna challenged.

And she had; Tywin hurling himself after her immediately and whooping outrageously as the wind tore at his clothes, but frightened, even then, that something would happen to her.

He had no idea what had made him stay in the birthing room this time. He hadn't, when Jaime and Cersei were born; sitting upright and still as a statue in the adjoining anteroom, glaring bitterly at his father as he drank glass after glass of wine, and made insipid speeches about the joys of fatherhood.

But this time. This time Tywin had been at her side, her screams tearing right through him, her hand clutching his desperately, her forest green eyes searching constantly for his, drawing out his strength. He had gifted it to her, again and again. _Take my life as well, if you have to. Take me._

When the child had finally been born after a day of labour, Joanna's face whiter than the cliffs beneath them, and Tywin closer to tears than he would have liked, the maester had cried out in alarm. It was gnarled and twisted as a weirwood; its face contorted as it yawned out its first scream. And suddenly Joanna was screaming too as the bed beneath her began to turn red, leaving nothing unstained but her skin, which was beautiful and honourable, even in...

'Joanna,' Tywin had murmured, when the screaming had stopped, 'Joanna.'

And he had waited and waited, because she always replied. She was incapable of not doing so. She would outlive twenty men trying to have the last word, even if it meant arguing for another three hours while the supper turned cold and the children fell asleep in their chairs.

But when she did not reply, the world had turned to silence and torment, and he had taken the crooked and distorted little creature from the maester's arms and straight down to the beach, meaning to let the sea swallow whole the monster who had killed his own mother.

But as he looked down at the waves that swirled about his knees and tried to avoid the eyes of the child in his arms, Tywin also looked down into the past, into his past, and hers, and thought, ever so briefly, of life.


	2. Chapter 2

For her fifteenth name day, Joanna Lannister had been given her first gown with dagged sleeves a riot of green and gold silk that made her look like a queen, and feel like an idiot.

She had refused dagged sleeves on every gown made for her, from her first woman's gown, right up to this one; such accoutrements being an insufferable hindrance that made walking a chore and transformed reading and writing into physical rather than mental activities. Joanna's long fights on the subject with her mother (and with her mother's dressmaker) had become a kind of ritual, until the two women had finally put their heads together and had hatched some ridiculous scheme to make her wear what they wanted by presenting this monstrosity to her for her name day. She couldn't very well refuse to wear it, but not even the entire dressmaker's guild of King's Landing could force her to like it.

It was in proving this point that Joanna kept her eyes cast mutinously downwards as her name day feast began, feeling irritated and on-edge, valiantly resisting the temptation to shorten her sleeves with the nearest sharp instrument and grudgingly admitting to herself that the true source of her peevishness lay in having spent most of the day engaged in a spectacular argument with Cousin Tywin on the ethics of dragon warfare that had ended as most of their disagreements did:

'Where are you going?' Tywin had demanded as she stormed towards the door.

'To fetch that infernal book from the library, since you refuse to take my word for it!' she had bellowed in return, slamming the door behind her and doing nothing of the sort.

Joanna's eyes searched for him and found him easily. He was at the table almost opposite from hers; sitting perfectly upright in his seat with that mix of austerity and a commanding kind of…something…that was his alone. She had known Tywin since their childhood together at Casterly Rock, and he had never ceased to be the most irritating person she had ever met. The insolence of it. Why couldn't he simply accept that she was right about everything? Her strange, severe, unlaughing friend. His father's work, no doubt; his father's bannermen's; the world's. Poor Lord Tytos. He was not present tonight, having refused to leave Casterly Rock (or his mistress, her brother Stafford had written to her) for the past three years, but he had sent Joanna a book of High Valyrian poetry earlier that week, together with a note calling her a pretty young lady and an honour to her House. She only wished the feeling was mutual. Of course, Lord Tytos was perfectly sweet, and would have fared well as a petty lord, or a younger son. But he was not a petty lord or a younger son, and that foolish old man's inability to understand the fact had single-handedly transformed House Lannister from a feared and powerful family into the laughing stock of Westeros; the butt of japes and drinking songs on every subject from whoring to legacy.

_A Lannister always pays…everyone else's debts. _

Joanna glowered across the room at Cousin Tywin, with his strong features and slim, yet powerful build, and wondered if he would look like his father one day; his person reduced to an insipid chin and a revoltingly deferential demeanour that the warmth in his eyes seemed to banish completely, if you could get close enough to see it.

Joanna almost snorted. That would actually require Tywin to have some life in him.

No doubt sensing his gaze on her, Tywin turned his head towards her and looked straight into her eyes, and Joanna lowered them immediately, furious at her own weakness.

_Let _him _apologise. _He_ is in the wrong. Killing ten thousand men in battle, cleanly and honourably, will always be better than burning a quarter of that number alive; sowing the earth with death and ash and the gods know what else. I'm right. He's wrong._

She looked at him again, and was rather disappointed to find that he looked utterly unperturbed, abstracted and bored; his thick blond hair still falling into his eyes no matter what he tried to do about it, its colour looking all the more striking against that infernal black leather doublet that he had worn, without fail, to each feast that year. He was a handsome one, even if the average ten year old knew more about strategy than he did. He was certainly a handsome one.

Joanna smiled to herself as yet another lord or bannerman or such-and-such rose to his feet, thrust his goblet into the air, and began to compare her hair to spun gold and her skin to summer snow. As much as Joanna found compliments to be nothing more than rhetoric of a predominantly insincere nature, she had to admit that it was rather pleasant to have them lavished upon her hundreds of times in a single evening, even if she hadn't given a single one her complete attention. So, firmly resolved not to think of Cousin Tywin again for at least a week, or even to glance in his wretched, uninformed direction, Joanna bowed her head in thanks as the present torrent of flattery ended, and the lord or bannerman or such-and-such regained his seat.

Joanna's heart began to hammer unpleasantly in her chest as Prince Aerys rose to his feet; his wife, the Princess Rhaella, laying an immaculate, pristine hand on his sleeve as he did so and saying something to him in a low voice. He ignored her, and began to speak.

'My lords, my ladies, let us look upon –'

Joanna had been relieved when she had learned that the crown prince and princess were the only members of the royal family that were to attend the feast; Joanna's lack of sufficiently intimidating blood ties to the Lord of Casterly Rock, Rhaella's unfailing courtesy and devotion to each one of her companions and Aerys' apparently insatiable desire to make her uncomfortable no doubt constituting the principal reasons for this. Joanna hissed to herself as she listened to Aerys waxing lyrical like a Qartheen merchant prince, wishing that Princess Rhaella had come on her own.

_She is the future Queen. She can't go anywhere on her own._

'– and each day since your arrival at court, the light of your beauty has only seemed to dazzle us further, blinding us with its radiance – '

Joanna swallowed. He had said something similar when he had come to her at midnight on the eve of his wedding, telling her that he intended to set Rhaella aside and make Joanna his queen. She had thrown him out as politely as was possible and had not dared to tell anyone of the occurrence, not even Tywin. But the damage was done; the threat of it glowing black in the depths of Aerys' violet eyes each time she saw him. It did so even now; hanging like a greatsword above the head of every person in the room.

' – indeed on this particular night, I would venture to remark that your beauty and grace surpass that of my lady wife, who pales like the evening star contemplating the moon.'

Joanna would have laughed aloud at such preposterous imagery had she been faced with anyone else. But the hush that descended over the hall at Aerys' words; the silence that crashed like a great wave over sound and over music, from the high table to the musician's gallery, was far too awful to laugh at.

Princess Rhaella's face was a death mask; serene, uncaring, but somehow terrible to look upon. She was loveliness itself in white brocade slashed with crimson velvet, and her silver hair tumbled in glorious cascades about her shoulders; the stunning, immaculate whiteness of her only making her pallour seem more pronounced. Joanna was mortified, and furious. She loved her princess; would even venture to call her a friend had she not known better; and while Aerys was…fond of constantly disrespecting his wife, it cut Joanna to the quick that he would use one of Rhaella's own companions to do so.

It also frightened her. It frightened her badly, because she realised, for the first time, that she could do nothing to stop him from using her in such a way, and nothing to stop him from using her in other ways, if he truly wanted to. He was a prince of the realm; the blood of the Dragon. Her father would be powerless to prevent him, and Lord Tytos would be as much use as nipples on a breastplate in such a situation. Joanna felt her throat closing up, and tears invading her eyes, and she blinked them away to find Tywin half out of his seat in anger and clearly wishing that he had brought his sword along, his eyes raging violently as he glared across the room at Aerys.

_Tywin would kill him first. I know he would._

Tearing his gaze from the prince, Tywin's eyes flickered suddenly to hers, and though they burned with a penetrating, frighteningly beautiful golden flame, Joanna realised that the expression in them was warm; encouraging; proud.

And suddenly, she understood.

_You are a Lannister of Casterly Rock_, Tywin seemed to say to her, _so stand up and show this dragonspawn your claws._

Joanna heard two hundred people holding their breath as she seized her wine glass, intending to stand up and to tell Aerys, as politely as she could, to go fuck himself.

But Princess Rhaella was there before her, rising gracefully in her seat, professing her hearty agreement with what her husband had said and calling for a toast to her companion's beauty that was all the more awful for being sincere. As the guests roared out their approval, Joanna crossed the hall to where Princess Rhaella stood; went to one knee in front of her, and kissed her hand. When Rhaella immediately raised her to her feet and kissed her cheek, the room erupted once again into a conflagration of whoops and cheers.

In that moment, the musicians took it upon themselves to aid Princess Rhaella in saving Aerys from his own folly by immediately signaling the beginning of the dancing; giving Joanna the break she needed to storm towards the doors and to run for her chambers, where she fully intended to spend the rest of the evening hiding under her bed in shame.

She had almost reached the doors when she felt a gentle hand touch the small of her back and graciously, if abruptly, about-turn her, and she glared mutinously at Cousin Tywin as he steered her back into the hall and led her back to the high table, his face characteristically severe, his grip on her hand brooking no argument. Whatever warmth she had seen in him was gone again. How predictable.

As he deposited her back into her seat, her heart and her throat throbbed in anger at him for thwarting her escape. So in her head, she prepared a cutting rebuttal for whichever one of his customary remarks about the family name he was about to make and waited for him to start speaking, triumphantly preparing to add the infuriated look on his face to her collection.

Her words died on her tongue when his fingers remained clasped between hers for a small eternity longer than she would have expected, and he brought her hand to his lips, kissing it ever so briefly, his severe green eyes softer than she had ever seen them.

'You look beautiful, cousin,' he murmured, before disappearing back to his seat and leaving her so utterly confused that she wanted to make a break for the hall doors all over again.

He didn't asked her to dance once.


	3. Chapter 3

Tytos Lannister buried his face in his hands and gave himself up to blind, uncontrollable panic. He was acutely aware that he had not experienced the emotion in almost ten years, and it was no more pleasant now than it had been then. And a Tarbeck responsible both times. Why would the gods not leave him in peace? He was a nervous man, and exciting himself could be fatal to his health. The maester had said so many times.

The first of these landmark brushes with panic took place when young Tywin had been four or five years old, and biddable as a shepherd's dog. He always said his prayers, learnt his lessons and applied himself to swinging a sword as elegantly as he could. The servants loved him, Tytos' bannermen loved him, his siblings loved him, and Tytos thanked the gods every day for having given him such an unremarkable boy for an eldest son. It would make the future much easier.

Then one morning, an unexpected chorus of screams, grunts and laughs from the practice yard was swiftly followed by the presence of the master of arms in Lord Tytos' solar, blabbering like a fool drunk on strongwine.

'It's little Lord Tywin, my lord; he's swung a sword into the head of Lord Tarbeck's eldest and damn near beaten him to death –'

'_What?_'

'It's true, my lord!'

_But Tywin is a good boy, a normal boy, unobtrusive, unassuming, one who wouldn't cause any trouble. The master of arms must have failed in some way. It must be that._

'And where in seven hells were you when this was happening?' Tytos demanded.

The master of arms blushed deeply before rushing to justify himself.

'No one could hold him, my lord, he was too –'

'No one could hold him?' Tytos repeated in disbelief.

'No, my lord,' the master of arms half-sobbed.

'_He's five years old!_'

'He was stronger than an aurochs, my lord; I've never seen the like in a child, he was –'

'_What happened next?_'

The master of arms then began to dance on the spot in anxiety.

'So there he was, blood flying every which way, and suddenly the little lady Joanna appeared and shouted at him.'

Tytos' heart stopped in his chest at that. If Tywin had harmed his cousin, and his girl cousin, at that, his wife would plague him about it till his dying day.

'And?' Tytos blurted.

"And', my lord?' the master of arms squawked in reply.

'_What did she shout at him?_' Lord Tytos bellowed, rather impressed at how powerful his voice could be when he put his mind to it.

"Don't kill him," the master of arms reported hastily, blushing once again as Tytos stared at him.

'That's all?'

'"Don't kill him," the little lady said, my lord, "Please don't."'

_Good girl. At least someone else in this thrice-damned castle was fond of peace and quiet._

'Did my son listen to her?' Tytos asked.

'Yes, my lord,' the master of arms had replied, nodding furiously, 'he even apologised. Though the little lord was too far gone to hear him.'

Lord Tytos took a deep breath and slumped backwards in his chair.

'Please ask Tywin to come up.'

'He's with the maester, my lord.'

'Oh. I'll send for him later, then.'

Lord Tytos barely had the time to panic and groan inwardly at the injustice of his peace being disturbed in this way before he received a raven from the Lord Tarbeck that stopped just short of declaring war. Tytos knew that his own father would have called the banners, sent to King's Landing for reinforcements, and laid siege to the seat of House Tarbeck immediately. But sieges could be so very draining, and often expensive. To best way to overcome this little spat was no doubt to pretend that it had never happened, and to hope that Tarbeck would be equally gracious.

When Tywin eventually took it into his head to come up, boasting no injury more serious than a cut lip, his tale made Lord Tytos very uncomfortable.

'One of the lads' fathers wanted money for a new horse,' Tywin told him calmly, 'and Tarbeck told him to ask you, because you always give out loans and never ask for them back. I told him he was lying. He laughed at me.'

Tytos had coloured, but had not replied. There was no harm in being generous. None at all.

'Is it true that Lord Tarbeck owes you five hundred gold dragons?' Tywin had asked him indignantly, his enormous green eyes darkening.

'No,' Tytos had contradicted hastily, 'of course not.'

He was lying, of course, and he could tell from Tywin's demeanour that his son knew it; the same mix of pity, disdain and ridicule that he so often saw on the faces of his bannermen staring out at him from the eyes of his own son. But in the red flush rising in Tywin's cheeks, he saw a new emotion that made his expression all the more terrible to look upon: anger.

_Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. Soon enough, it will all be forgotten._

But it had not been forgotten, of course.

Lord Tarbeck had demanded a public apology; Tytos had agreed; Tywin had refused; Tytos had insisted; Tywin had refused again; Lannister men and Tarbeck men had traded insults and come to blows in every town in the Westerlands, and catastrophe had only been averted by the intercession of the Ladies Tarbeck and Lannister, who had banged their husbands' heads together, forced them to shake hands and had so enjoyed the experience of it that they had begun to meet once a week for harp lessons right up until the day of Lady Lannister's death.

And now it was once again Tarbeck, this infernal Tarbeck, who was making Tytos tremble and sweat in distress for the second time in ten years; his hands clutching each other as they shielded his face; his heart throbbing madly in his chest; his head swimming and shimmering with nausea. Why were other people so fond of conflict? Why could they not simply be content with their lives and allow him to be content with his?

Lord Tarbeck, it would seem, had decided to stake an absurd ancestral claim to some dreary piece of dirt nestled right in the middle of those lands belonging to House Westerling. Matters between the two Houses had proceeded as such things usually do, until Lord Tarbeck had become bored with simple quarrelling, and had decided to stake his claim to the land using military force. Lord Tytos, queasy as he always had been about doing so much as talking to his bannermen, let alone disciplining them, had waited until the morning after the pitched battle on the plains beneath the Crag before summoning Lord Tarbeck to Casterly Rock, wishing that his wife were still alive to deal with the situation for him.

Remembering the interview, which had taken place an hour earlier, Lord Tytos whimpered aloud. It had been little more than a lot of one-sided screaming on Lord Tarbeck's part, with Tytos occasionally breaking into the din to plea for mercy on his shattered nerves.

'My dear Tarbeck, why must you shout so? My nerves are not what they once were. The maester says I should be careful.'

Lord Tarbeck had then proceeded to tell him, multiple times, what he thought of the maester, before remarking that he would be sure to chop the fool's balls off when he marched on Casterly Rock.

'And that is precisely what I will do, _my lord_, if you insist on preventing me from taking what is lawfully mine.'

Lord Tytos had then been seized by a kind of bravery that he had not experienced since his youth; shouting for his guards and ordering that his insolent bannerman be thrown into the dungeons below the Rock to await the King's justice; the infuriated Tarbeck roaring all the while about vengeance, fire and blood like some deranged Targaryen maniac.

When the door had finally closed behind the guards and their captive, the great roaring fire of Tytos' new-found courage had dwindled to a feeble wheeze of flame dancing off damp wood, until nothing was left of it but a faint odour of smoke, and blind, uncontrollable panic. Lord Tytos almost wept as he collapsed into his chair, wondering what in seven hells he was meant to do now.

Summoning a servant, he called for willow tea.


	4. Chapter 4

_Father._

_I heartily agree that you should restore Lord Tarbeck to his lady in exchange for my three cousins. Returning him to her in three pieces should be sufficient to remind her that Lannisters pay their debts and not everyone else's._

_Also, I want to marry Joanna. Please send your consent by the next raven._

_Your respectful son_

_Tywin._

Tywin handed the raven scroll to a servant, watched calmly as the man left the room, then leapt to his feet to go after him. He'd changed his mind.

Tywin got as far as wrenching the door open, making his guards jump a foot in the air, before changing his mind yet again. He closed the door slowly and quietly, and stood leaning against it for a moment, the cool wood surprisingly soothing against his burning forehead.

His mind groaned like the hinges of an ancient gate that longed to be closed, but was kept firmly and cruelly open by its keepers; people and ideas and hate and shame and anger and annoyance and questions and confusion and love and history streaming in and out of it at will and making such an unbearable racket that Tywin felt only mildly conscious of being sane.

* * *

Earlier that day, he had come upon Prince Aerys in the library, talking with Cousin Joanna. The prince was standing rather closer to her than Tywin thought appropriate, and was impeding all her chances of escape in a manner of questionable courtesy; standing as she was with her back to a bookshelf, unable to move; a ponderous tome clutched to her chest like a shield. Joanna's hair fell unbound to her waist; she was biting on her teeth to stop herself from crying; and there was something of a threat in her form; something crushed and unbearable trying to pull her apart.

_Something is troubling her. Not Prince Aerys, I think. He is simply making whatever it is worse._

Tywin admired Prince Aerys. He was an educated young man, if a little verbose, with a fine mind for strategy, and would make a great king someday soon, if his father and grandfather keeled over as soon as was commonly expected. The discomfort on Joanna's face, however, and Aerys' evident desire to ignore it, left Tywin sorely tempted to ask him how well dragons could fly before heaving him out the window.

_Do not think like a petulant child, _he had told himself, _remember that he does not know her as well as you do._

'I will ask my lord grandfather to provide troops,' the prince was saying.

'This is a Westerlands matter,' Joanna replied flatly, 'and it is certainly not serious enough to involve the Crown.'

'Joanna?' Tywin said simply, causing Aerys to step hurriedly back from her like he'd been scourged.

Tywin bowed deeply.

'My prince,' he greeted.

'Lord Tywin,' Aerys replied.

'If I might beg your indulgence by asking permission to speak to my cousin alone.'

The corner of Aerys' mouth tweaked in annoyance, but he bowed courteously in response and walked to the door.

Joanna let the book drop to the floor, and did not even wait for Prince Aerys to leave the room before approaching her cousin and walking into his arms, nestling her head into his chest and putting her arms around his waist, starting to cry in earnest.

As Tywin wound his arms around her back, he felt her jump at the sound of a sudden hiss of annoyance, followed by the slamming of the library door. He rocked her gently as though nothing had happened, trying to calm her down. She felt impossibly small; improperly fragile; her body not enough to contain her. He could feel her shoulder blades through her gown, delicate as a bird's, her slender waist felt brittle against his, and her hair smelled like breakable things; like jasmine and lavender. How could her body be so unlike who she was? The rest of her was wildfire; and when they had been small, Tywin had thought that when her fire diminished, like it was doing now, he had kept it alive in his own chest for her, until she could take it back.

It had taken him years to realise that that particular sensation was only the physical manifestation of his desire to kill every person that made her cry.

Her tears were making her hair stick to her cheeks, so he smoothed it gently back from her face, his fingertips dabbing lightly at the tender skin beneath her eyes.

'What's the matter, cousin?' he asked softly.

Joanna sniffled.

'They've taken Stafford.'

'Who's taken Stafford?'

She handed him a raven scroll.

A similar one was waiting for him when he returned to his chambers after passing the unwieldy baton of convincing Joanna to rest to her septa ('_I don't need a rest, I need my hunting knife and a fast horse!'_). The scroll was written in his father's hand, and worst of all, in his tone, and it was that, rather than the words themselves that made Tywin so angry.

_It's not my fault I didn't mean for it to happen I didn't mean to offend I didn't want to offend But I do so hate conflict But I didn't know what to do But being generous is surely a good thing It was a moment's madness and now look what's happened Why can't we all live in peace My nerves are not what they once were, my son You are too much like your mother, blessed be her her memory Why do you always desire war._

Tywin stared hard at the wall for hours and hours, ignoring each knock at his door, sending the servants scurrying when they entered to light his candles and cursing his father to the seven hells for bringing their family to this.

When Tywin had been small, he had thought it a wonderful thing to have a father that made people laugh. Every Westerlander, from the renowned drunks of Lannisport, to the stable boys of Casterly Rock, to the bannermen that owed House Lannister allegiance, laughed when they spoke of him and laughed when they saw him, and Tywin loved him for it. His father had a good heart. He would tell Tywin funny stories, and give him sweets whenever he asked for them, and he had a strange way of scratching his head when he was confused that made him look like an owl, making Tywin hoot in laughter and shout at Father to do the same.

Father made Tywin happy by making him laugh, and created happiness in other people by making _them_ laugh. And each time Tywin sat at lessons, learning of the characteristic sternness of House Tully of Riverrun or House Stark of Winterfell, he would be relieved that he did not live at Riverrun or Winterfell, but at Casterly Rock; a place where laughter was welcome.

But then the younger Lord Tarbeck had visited with them and had shouted out for all the world to hear that Father was too much of a coward to ask for his own money back, and a roar of laughter had gone up across the entire practice yard. And Tywin's heart had wrenched and frozen in his chest and his head had almost caved in under the humiliation of it as he had realised that people laughed at Father because they found him ridiculous, not because they loved him. And that imbecilic little fool Tarbeck could do nothing but laugh; dancing and gesturing like a lord throwing coins to a crowd. Tywin remembered very little of what had happened next, only the sound of Joanna's voice.

'Don't kill him! _Please!_ Please don't.'

He had wanted to slaughter every last person who had laughed at his father that day. It hadn't taken him long, of course, to realise that his father had more than earned each gale of laughter that was directed at him.

The family's coffers might as well as have been left abandoned on the Kingsroad, for all the care that Father took of them. It was common practice for bannermen to ask Lord Tytos for enormous amounts of coin to fortify a castle or to rebuild a village ravaged by flooding, and to use the money to hold lavish feasts and tourneys. Extravagant furnishings for their castles, rooms of gowns for their wives and daughters, and unfailingly large quantities of weapons for their sons were funded almost entirely on coin from Casterly Rock. On the rare occasions that Lord Tytos did not prove accommodating, it sufficed to bark an insult at him to get him to yield. The worse the insult, the more coin he would give, because he would do anything to be left alone.

Naturally, the taxes charged by Lord Tytos' bannermen increased each time their greed did, and not one of them thought to use their ill-gotten coin to ease the suffering of the poor; so starvation, theft, murder and whoring increased exponentially in the Westerlands, and brigandage proved such a serious threat to the lands of some of the smaller Houses that their lords soon adopted the habit of applying to House Tarbeck or House Reyne for protection rather than to their rightful overlord, House Lannister.

And all the while, people would laugh, as though the whole sorry business were the greatest joke ever conceived of.

Tywin would wince each time he heard a cackle, or a giggle, or a snigger, however unconnected to his father it might be. Sometimes he would cry so hard that he thought his heart would rupture. And eventually, he built castle walls around the winging, whining weakling of an organ that was somehow responsible for keeping him alive, and forced himself to listen, and think, and watch every smile and every laugh on every face in Casterly Rock; feeling nothing, but swearing that one day he would have silence.

He didn't mind so much when Joanna laughed, of course, but there was no mockery in the way Joanna laughed, only joy; and though the emotion was almost foreign to him (now), watching her giggling about something she found funny (him, most likely) would be enough to make him feel something like happiness. When she left, the feeling would leave with her, and he would pray that Father would send him to foster somewhere far away from the jokes and the sneers. It never happened.

Casterly Rock was honoured, shortly after Tywin's tenth birthday, with a royal visit from King Aegon. 'Renewed vows of friendship, two great Houses such as ours should not be strangers,' and so on. How very quaint. Tywin knew, as did everyone else, that the King was really coming to tell Father that he'd turned the Westerlands into a riotous, disorderly disgrace and that his Wardenship of the West would be revoked if he failed to do something about it.

When Father emerged after spending the entire first afternoon of the royal visit cooped up in his solar with King Aegon, he did not even have the good grace to cast doubt upon this theory, drinking glass after glass of wine at the welcoming feast while the King glowered at him with barely-suppressed disgust from his place of honour at Lord Tytos' side. Having drunk nothing but water and willow tea for the past twenty years, Father was irredeemably drunk by the time the dancing began, and worst of all, everyone could see it.

As Tywin returned to the high table after a rare dance with Cousin Joanna, his head hanging in despair at the very idea of sitting down again, he observed a servant attempting to refill Father's glass, causing his mother to place her hand firmly on top of it in refusal. To Tywin's horror, Father simply seized the pitcher from the servant's hands and drank from that, wine spilling down his chin and onto his doublet. The hall roared with laughter, and Tywin turned to face them, murder in his eyes.

The laughs died away immediately.

There was an unbearable tension in Tywin's limbs that made him feel like they were turning to stone. His hands clenched into fists, his mouth was reduced to a painful gash; and he prepared for the moment when the silence would be broken, when someone would whistle, or catcall, and everyone would remember that he was just a boy, a mouse, the son of a doddering old fool.

But the silence did not break, and as Tywin continued to glare at them, the tautness in his muscles fading away, the sound of his breath returning to his ears, and his heart beginning to beat, very quickly, he realised that he was doing nothing more threatening than looking at them; feeling no emotion more crippling than disdain, and they were staring at him in fear, as though he held a jar of wildfire in his hands.

It was exhilarating.

Tywin relished the feeling for a moment more, then turned to the musicians.

'Proceed.'

And they did, striking up an unusually raucous rendition of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair _with something like relief.

As Tywin regained his seat and called for wine, his blood singing like the battle fury, someone slumped into the vacant seat beside him, and he turned to ask whoever it was to leave him alone.

Tywin almost upset his wine glass, then, because his unwanted neighbour was King Aegon Targaryen, his silver-golden hair shining so brightly beneath his crown that Tywin found it difficult to tell where his hair ended and his crown began.

'_You _have not said a word to me since my arrival, little lord,' the King declared, taking the pitcher of wine from the servant and pouring out Dornish red, first for Tywin, then for himself.

Tywin would have been flabbergasted had he been in the habit of losing his composure. Instead, he cast about for something flattering to say. Flattery was the sort of thing kings liked, wasn't it?

'It is difficult to think of something meaningful to say when faced with the most powerful man in Westeros, Your Grace,' Tywin said eventually, feeling rather proud of himself.

Aegon's eyes narrowed.

'You think a crown gives you power?' the King asked casually, as though addressing an equal.

Tywin, grateful for the gesture, replied without hesitation.

'No. I think fear gives you power.'

Aegon nodded in approval, and drank deeply from his goblet before continuing to speak.

'I have spent most of the afternoon speaking with your lord father. And we have agreed that he will remain Warden of the West, if only to keep up appearances, but that it will be your lady mother, and no other, upon whom the burden of power will rest.'

The concept was too revolutionary for Tywin to wonder why the King was condescending to discuss this with him.

'Mother?' Tywin repeated, frowning slightly.

The King dismissed the question with a wave of the royal fingers.

'Lady Lannister's handling of the Tarbeck matter was ingenious.'

'She's a woman,' Tywin insisted, 'Father's bannermen will not like it.'

'If he breathes a word of this to his bannermen, I will have him executed,' Aegon declared, 'More wine.'

The servant poured, and the King drank.

'Excellent,' he pronounced, smacking his lips with perfect gentility before laying a hand on Tywin's sleeve, 'I wish to invite you to King's Landing, little lord. As my guest.'

Tywin's heart leapt in his chest, but he kept his face calm, as he had taught himself to do. _Never let them see_.

'For – for how long, my lord? Your Grace?' Tywin stuttered.

The King pursed his lips.

'Indefinitely. I had intended to wait two years, but after what I have seen tonight, I have realised that I cannot delay any longer. If you remain in the care of your parents, you will fall on your own sword before you're fifteen, and out of sheer boredom.'

_Is this his way of telling me that Father is a fool and he wants to keep me away from him?_

'But what I am to do in King's Landing, Your Grace?' Tywin asked.

'Anything you like,' Aegon replied, 'you may squire, if you wish to. You may train with the finest knights in the Kingdoms, if you wish to. You may study, if you wish to. And you may spend all your time doing nothing, if that is your desire. But I don't think it is. Do you?'

The King's purple eyes were trained on him, and for the first time in his life, Tywin felt that he was understood, understood by a person who wasn't Mother or Joanna. Tywin shook his head.

'No, Your Grace. I don't want to spend all my time doing nothing.'

When the King turned away from him to speak to Father, Tywin's heart exploded with excitement, then imploded as he realised that going to the capital meant leaving Joanna. She was his only friend, and the only one he was likely to have in the foreseeable future. He was made for solitude. He should value those friends that he had.

He hissed at himself not to be a fool. He had been praying for years for the gods to send him a way to leave Casterly Rock, and now that they had, he was worrying about a little girl.

_Don't be ridiculous, _he told himself, _go to King's Landing. Escape. _

When Joanna had heard the news, she had refused to talk to him, or even to look at him, and when the King had finally left Casterly Rock, taking Tywin with him, she had refused to come and say goodbye, screaming through her chamber door that he was a traitor and a coward.

He did not see her, or hear from her, in three years. Sometimes entire weeks would pass in which she did not even enter his thoughts. The capital was a distraction; a new world; a world where a boy could choose to lose himself, or to become himself. In King's Landing, weakness was crushed the moment it reared its head; vengeance followed every insult; and giants could rise through intellect alone in the playing of the only game that truly mattered: the game of thrones. Sometimes, after hearing some intrigue, he would find himself thinking 'How very interesting. I must tell Joanna.' Then he would remember that Joanna had been angry with him for the past three years, and would probably tear his letter up without reading it.

Joanna eventually came to King's Landing herself, as a companion to Princess Rhaella. She arrived on the hottest morning of the year, the sun seeming to hang higher in the sky than it did at noon, making Tywin feel faint as well as nervous. He was eager to see her again, but he had no desire to have his teeth punched in in front of half the court. She had a terrible temper.

When she arrived, he spotted her immediately as she rode astride like a man into the forecourt of the Red Keep, wearing a forest green hunting gown and high boots, two simple braids adorning her golden hair. She smiled when she saw him, as though the past three years had never happened.

'Well met, cousin!' Joanna chuckled charmingly as he helped her off her horse, and as she had crushed the breath from his lungs, laughing and dancing on the balls of her feet in delight, he had fallen in love.

* * *

Tywin started as he realised that the room around him was completely dark, and that he could barely see the opposite wall. His limbs also seemed to have gone numb. As he rose to his feet and felt blood flow back into them, he thought once again of his accursed father; Lord Tytos the good man, the coward, the fool who had remembered he was a Lannister, twenty years too late. When Tywin had read the words 'I have seized Lord Tarbeck,' he had almost leapt into the air with pride, even though he already knew, from Joanna, that Lady Tarbeck had imprisoned three Lannister hostages in retaliation, which would probably scare Father enough to give in to her demands.

When Tywin had read the words 'I am quite at a loss as to how to proceed,' he had bitten so hard on his lip that he drew blood. Was the old man simple? All he had to do was chop that old bastard Tarbeck into three chunks, one for each imprisoned Lannister, and send the pieces to Lady Tarbeck as a gift. None of Father's bannermen would ever bother him again.

Tywin stood alone in the dark, thinking of the advice he had sent to his father, hoping that he would follow it, knowing that he wouldn't, and thinking, fleetingly, of the words he had added to the raven scroll: 'Also, I want to marry Joanna.' He had realised it in the library today as she had fought against her tears, refusing to yield to them until he was near her, her own vulnerability too terrible a thing to face alone. In that grim determination, and in that looming helplessness, he had seen himself, and he had known that just as he protected her, she protected him, because she loved him, as he loved her.

The room was so dark that he could barely see his own hand in front of his face. He walked, stumbled, stubbed his toe, and opened the door.

Tywin tapped his sleeping guard on the helmet, relishing the yelp of surprise that ensued.

'Bring me some candles,' Tywin ordered, and walked back to his desk; leaving the door open; letting in the light.


	5. Chapter 5

Joanna did not even wait to be announced before pushing past the guard into Tywin's chambers, a raven scroll clutched in her hand.

She found him behind his desk, unshaven and hollow-eyed, looking like he hadn't slept in weeks. Normally, she would have asked him what in seven hells had happened to him before ordering him to take a bath. But today she would be she was happy.

'Lady Tarbeck has released Stafford!' she exclaimed excitedly, flinging herself down opposite her cousin, 'and he writes that he's unharmed, if a little stiff from being chained up…'

Tywin scarcely seemed to be listening to her. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was gazing intently at nothing out of the corner of his eye. His face was as impenetrable as it always was, but his eyes were so dark that they looked almost black from numbness. Joanna pounded on the table with her open palm, demanding his attention. She had no time for Tywin's nonsense today. Her brother was free, and she was happy.

'Lord Tarbeck has been returned unharmed to his lady,' Joanna said slowly, 'and she was gracious enough not to cut my brother's throat.'

Her cousin remained mute.

'Tywin,' Joanna remarked testily, 'perhaps I should educate you as to what courtesy demands in these situations. When a lady expresses happiness that a relative has not died, you are meant to express your happiness also; to say how relieved you are; to thank the gods that your Father gave in to Lady Tarbeck's demands rather than allow Stafford to be slaughtered.'

'I wish he was dead,' Tywin replied.

Joanna's heart stopped in her chest.

'You…you wish my brother was dead.'

'Not your brother. My father.'

She tried to think of something, anything to say that would transform that last remark into a very bad joke. But the pristine, unmarked, uncaring marble of Tywin's face in that moment wiped her mind blank, and the malevolent black flames in his eyes, so different from the warm, glorious gold that had burned in them on the night of her name day feast, tore out her tongue. How could he say such a thing? Lord Tytos was a doddering old fool, certainly, but…how could he say…

'Tywin,' Joanna murmured eventually, 'how can you – he's – he is your _father_.'

Tywin's face contorted in fury.

'My _father's_…actions,' he spat, 'have brought this family to the brink of an abyss. Hundreds of years of glory and honour discarded…_thrown_ away…'

'Tywin.'

She wanted him to stop. His tone was terrifying her.

'…replaced with laughter…and _ridicule_, with sheep mocking lions, sheep _ruling_ lions, with nothing more than a few overly-loud bleats of indignation. He's pathetic. He has…_destroyed_ us. I want him dead. _I want him dead_.'

'_Stop this at once!_' Joanna cried, rising and grasping the edge of the table with her fingers, 'I understand that you're upset, Tywin, but I will not allow you to sit there wishing your own father dead over some ridiculous political spat that will be forgotten in a week.'

'You're a fool if you think it will be forgotten in a week,' Tywin shot back contemptuously.

Joanna leaned threateningly across the table and looked into her cousin's eyes.

'_Are you calling me a fool?_'

Unintimidated, Tywin looked nonchalantly at her and did not even blink.

'This…'political spat,' as you call it, is proof,' Tywin growled, 'conclusive proof, that House Lannister is no longer great. It cements our weakness and our ineptitude, our fall. It demonstrates to all the world that it is House Tarbeck that rules in the Westerlands. And House Reyne, of course, though I can't see how they would have – '

'So because of the actions of a couple of Tarbecks and Reynes,' Joanna scoffed, 'you would wish your own father dead?'

Tywin's eyes were terrible as they met hers.

'What would you do?' he asked.

'I would try to protect my father from them,' she replied, without hesitation.

Tywin looked away again.

'He doesn't deserve protection.'

'I don't care what he deserves. He's family. His name is Lannister. That's enough.'

When Tywin did not reply, Joanna slumped into her chair once more and covered her eyes with her hand, feeling faint, angry and distressed. She hated it when Tywin talked this way. Perhaps it was hardly surprising, when he had grown up forcing himself to despise every person with a smile on their face. Everyone except her, of course. He would have asked her to stop years ago if her smiling and laughter troubled him as much as everyone else's did.

Joanna studied her cousin yet again as he sat abstracted and pulsing with hatred before her, terrifyingly and violently beautiful in his rage, and she thought for a moment of how things might have been.

If only little Lord Tarbeck had never visited with them, all those years ago. If only one of the lads' fathers hadn't wanted money for a new horse. If only he hadn't needed a horse at all. And if only the little lord had been gracious, and not so fond of listening to his father. Were it not for all those things, her cousin might have been a happy man. Not that his being a happy man would have made her love him more. She didn't think that that was possible.

_I really do love him in spite of all that; in spite of his anger; his darkness. Perhaps I love him because of it. _

_No, that isn't true. If it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation. _

Joanna wondered for a moment where all these thoughts of love were coming from. When had loving Tywin become such an obvious thing that she could think about it so casually? There had been no epiphany for her, none of the flashes of lightning or sweet summer breezes that the singers said were meant to happen. It had occurred to her as an ordinary thought, something habitual that she thought of every day. When had this started? When had Tywin become this, and ceased to be the strange, unlaughing boy who devoted his life to contradicting her?

_Never. He has always been both. It is why you enjoy fighting with him. And it is why it hurts you so much to see him unhappy._

'What is it?' Tywin was asking, his voice pulling her from her thoughts and back to where she sat opposite him.

'I wish…' Joanna replied, 'I do so wish…that you could be happy.'

Tywin's face turned from marble to flesh, light erupting in his green eyes, starving away the black.

'Why would I need to be happy?' he said, 'I have you.'

To Joanna's acute embarrassment, she blushed to the roots of her hair. Bowing her head immediately, she screamed at herself to have some self-respect, before looking once more at Tywin, almost falling off her chair as she did so.

He was…was he smiling at her? The corners of his mouth had turned up, ever so slightly; so faintly that someone who did not know him might never have noticed it. He looked perfectly serene, like he knew all the answers to every question in the world, and Joanna's heart began to hammer gloriously in her chest as Tywin's cheeks erupted, red as blood.

'Joanna…' Tywin trailed off.

'Cousin?' she managed to reply.

'Marry me.'

He was smiling properly now, his face like light; like he was about to laugh. Joanna covered her mouth with her hands and waited for the sound, scarcely able to believe what she was seeing, and afraid; afraid that she had imagined the question; that her delight at seeing him smile was putting words into her head that had never really been spoken.

Tywin looked confused and a little hurt, but his smile did not fade.

'Joanna, are you –'

'Of course I'll marry you!' she blurted, leaping to her feet and scrambling to where he sat on the other side of the desk.

As she hugged him tightly enough to break his ribs, and showered his face with kisses, Tywin Lannister burst out laughing, and the sound was beautiful.


	6. Chapter 6

Kevan Lannister had scarcely opened his mouth to ask Tywin's guard to announce him before the chamber door flew open, and a young man in Lannister livery bolted out of it, disappearing down the corridor in a whirlwind of sobs and rapidly-moving limbs. Sighing, Kevan entered the room to find Tywin standing before the glass in one of his 'too angry to talk' moods, struggling with the elaborate lion-shaped clasps on the magnificent crimson and gold doublet their father had sent as an early wedding gift.

Kevan slapped Tywin's shaking hands away from the clasps and began to buckle them himself, trying not to laugh at his brother's evident anxiety.

'Isn't it bad luck to drive servants to tears on your own wedding day?' Kevan enquired good-naturedly.

Tywin snorted in derision, but did not reply.

'Oh, I know,' Kevan continued, 'you're probably at a complete loss to understand why the boy reacted that way.'

'I simply told him to go away,' Tywin answered flatly.

Kevan laughed affectionately, rolling his eyes as his brother glared at him in response.

'Don't you try your death stare on me, Tywin,' Kevan declared, 'I am immune.'

'Oh no, you're not.'

Kevan thought for a moment before replying.

'You're right. I'm not.'

Tywin took a pitcher of wine from the table behind him.

'Wine?' he offered.

'Don't mind if I do,' Kevan replied, mildly concerned by the earliness of the hour, but nodding his thanks as Tywin handed him a glass.

Kevan raised it dramatically above his head.

'To Cousin Joanna!' he exclaimed.

'May she not be late!' Tywin finished.

Kevan raised one eyebrow quizzically.

'A joke, Tywin? Should I summon a maester to examine you?'

Tywin raised one of his own eyebrows in response.

'Only if you're foolish enough to think I was joking.'

Kevan watched as Tywin finished his wine in one gulp and poured himself another glass immediately.

'I saw Father this morning,' Kevan ventured cautiously.

'Did you?' Tywin replied, without much interest.

'He says he came to see you, and that you refused to let him in.'

'I had no desire to break a man's jaw on my own wedding day.'

Kevan sighed.

'Tywin…he's a soft old fool, I know, but he _is_ your father.'

'So everyone tells me.'

Kevan's heart sank as he watched Tywin's lips turn white along with his face, making him look older and bitterer than his fifteen years. There was a hardness in his eyes that did not belong there; an abysmal flaw in what could otherwise have been a perfect emerald. True, there were also creases between his eyes from reading too much, and callouses on his hands from sparring too much, but that look in his eyes came from hating too much, and Kevan knew that his brother had not been born hating people.

'Do you remember the day we fetched Cousin Joanna from Lannisport?' Kevan asked.

Tywin did not reply, but Kevan could tell, immediately, that he _did _remember, and decided to press on.

'You were three, and already a wise man –'

'Kevan –'

'I was two, and a total idiot. So I called you a miserable coward and dared you to throw yourself from your pony and into the harbour. I never imagined that you'd actually do it.'

Tywin remained silent.

'Once I'd stopped laughing,' Kevan continued, 'I realised that you weren't coming up for air, so I started to scream. And Father dove into the sea immediately, without even removing his cloak or his boots, graceful as a dolphin. He might have been a fish himself. When he pulled you out, you were coughing and spluttering and utterly hysterical, holding onto him like your life depended on it and screaming at anyone who tried to pull you away from him, even Mother. Eventually, he seated you in front of him on his horse, and you rode together, sopping wet, all the way back to Casterly Rock. Sometimes he would let you take the reins and steer the horse into a gallop, and he would tell you stories about Aegon the Conqueror and the Field of Fire. And I remember Mother complaining and the servants gossiping, and the smallfolk frowning about the Lord of Casterly Rock _rewarding_ his son for his idiocy instead of having him whipped, starved and punished, as any normal parent would have done. I remember being insanely jealous, because I had to stay on my stupid pony while you got to ride on father's hunting horse, like a real grown-up. It made me wish I had thrown myself into the harbour instead. And when we eventually got home, you followed him around for days afterwards. He was a hero to you, and you loved him, and I know that you've never stopped loving him, in spite of everything. I can see it now in the way you're glaring at me. So yes, he's a weak old ass who deserves hatred and ridicule, but he doesn't deserve them from you. He deserves protection, and compassion, because he is a good father. Even though he's the worst Warden of the West in…well…ever, really.'

Tywin's eyes were softer than a child's, and Kevan thought for one moment that he saw tears there. If he did, they were gone in an instant, and all that remained was Tywin, staring guiltily at his boots and looking more helpless than Kevan had seen him in years.

'I don't hate him,' Tywin mumbled, 'not really.'

Kevan grasped the back of his brother's neck and forced Tywin to look at him.

'Then stop being such a bloody cold fish, and shake his hand or smile at him or _something _when you get to the Great Sept, or you'll have me to deal with.'

Tywin's eyes meet Kevan's for a moment, blue-green and gold with emotion, before Kevan leaned in and embraced his brother tightly, smiling to himself when Tywin did not remain stiff as a board, but did a passable job of returning the embrace, his wine glass still clutched in his hand.

'Now, then,' Kevan said, confiscating Tywin's wine glass and pushing him towards the door, 'let's get you married before you retire another perfectly good servant for breathing too loudly.'


	7. Chapter 7

Joanna's fingers laced through Tywin's as they watched their wedding guests progress from wanting to eat, to wanting to dance, to wanting to get drunk. Lordlings were already becoming acquainted with the bodices of the serving wenches; Princess Rhaella looked unseeingly ahead of her as Prince Aerys consumed what appeared to be his forty-fifth cup of wine; and in the chair directly next to them, Lord Tytos was dropping off to sleep despite the din, his chin nodding onto his chest.

Joanna squeezed Tywin's hand. His skin felt very warm against hers.

'I'm glad you've reconciled with your father,' she said.

'I have not reconciled with my father,' Tywin stated firmly, glancing at the old man out of the corner of his eye, 'I simply condescended to shake his hand.'

'That sounds like a reconciliation to me,' Joanna insisted.

'So did the Host of the Two Kings, and just look what happened to them.'

'Are you _mocking_ me, Tywin?'

'The thought never occurred to me.'

'Oh yes it did!'

Joanna opened her mouth to continue, before promptly clamping it shut again and smiling sheepishly. They were fighting already.

Tywin had clearly had the same thought, because there was light in his eyes, and a smile ghosting around the edges of his mouth. Joanna reached out to touch his lips with her fingers, branding the memory onto her skin and her mind before his face changed again.

'You're a good smiler, Tywin,' she said softly, 'you should do it more often.'

'Should I?' he answered, pausing as Joanna's thumb brushed his bottom lip.

'Though don't think you can just open your mouth and smile at me whenever you want something,' she continued, 'because I won't fall for it, I'll –'

Joanna felt her words swallowed whole as Tywin leaned forward and kissed her; briefly, genteelly, but in public, in front of everyone. He'd never even kissed her in private before.

Smiling beneath his lips, her blood singing, Joanna tasted warmth, sweet red and wetness as Tywin gently cupped her cheek, his thumb trailing lazily down her jaw before he released her, polite and dignified as ever.

Joanna straightened up abruptly, her hand once again finding Tywin's as Prince Aerys roared out his desire for a pitcher of some Volantene rarity that no one had ever heard of and Princess Rhaella turned an even paler shade of white from her unwilling place beside him. Rhaella drained her glass to the dregs and looked at her brother with open hatred, her eyes seeming to burn as black and red as the Targaryen colours adorning her gown.

'Now _there_ is a man that I will never understand,' Tywin remarked, looking at Aerys with something like pity, 'just look at him. Second-in-line to the throne of one of the most powerful dynasties in history; intelligent; good-looking; excellent at anything he puts his mind to; but he cannot even make his own sister love him.'

'That's because she's in love with someone else,' Joanna blurted, saying the first thing that popped into her head.

'You would place the blame entirely with her?' Tywin asked in surprise.

Joanna drew a shaky breath.

'No. No, I wouldn't, I - '

'Joanna, what –'

Joanna willed herself not to look down at her arm under any circumstances; knowing that no good would come of it. But her eyes betrayed her, of course, and within seconds, Tywin was releasing her hand, and reaching for her other arm. His fingers trailed over the fresh scabs on her knuckles, his hands whiter than hers; but when they slipped beneath her sleeve and lightly pulled it up, exposing the blue finger marks that stained the flesh beneath, they became red.

'Did Aerys do this to you?' Tywin asked softly, clearly not trusting himself to speak louder.

Joanna nodded mutely.

'When?' Tywin insisted.

Joanna stared down at where their hands lay entwined.

'Last night; I was in the sept, he…'

Tywin's fingers caressed her knuckles yet again and he winced as his fingertips ghosted over them.

'He grabbed my arm when I tried to run,' Joanna murmured, 'but the knuckles are my fault.'

'_Your_ fault?'

'I…I punched him in the mouth…Tywin, no!'

Tywin had leapt abruptly to his feet with the obvious intention of doing Prince Aerys harm, and Joanna slammed her hand down onto his forearm, turning him to face her before he could move further.

'_Don't be stupid!_' she hissed under her breath.

'Let go of me, Joanna!' he growled in return.

'If you harm one hair on his silver head, you'll be executed,' Joanna whispered, with as much authority as she could muster, 'you know it. I know it. So _sit down._'

Tywin glared at her for a moment more before grudgingly sitting down again and turning to face her once more.

'Explain to me why _you_ may risk execution to protect your honour and I may not,'

'I think Prince Aerys would sooner execute _himself_ that admit to being punched by a girl.'

'Why didn't you _tell _me about this?' Tywin demanded, suddenly seeming more hurt than angry.

'Because I feared that you'd do something stupid,' Joanna replied.

Tywin looked ready to strangle her.

'The prince insults you in this way and you would have me stand by and do _nothing_?'

Moved, in spite of herself, by the extent of his wrath, Joanna allowed herself a small smile of contentment before replying.

'I wouldn't have you do nothing, no,' she said, 'But I would prefer it if you acted like a citizen of the Red Keep and not like some country bumpkin who only settles disputes by brawling.'

'You're one to talk.'

'I had no other option at that particular moment. You, on the other hand –'

Tywin sat back in his seat and looked at her, impressed.

'You think I should play him,' he stated candidly.

'It's certainly preferable to getting yourself killed,' she shrugged.

'And you don't think attempting to turn a prince of the realm into a pawn will get me killed?'

'No. Your wits are far sharper than his. One day, when you can no longer hold a sword, you will fight with wits alone, and win. I cannot say the same for Aerys.'

'Aerys is a clever man.'

'But an unobservant one. Fickle. Impulsive. Someday, it will get him killed.'

Tywin was looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time; understanding who she was; what she was; what she meant; and loving her all the more for her newness; her newness that was also oldness. The knowledge made Joanna smile.

'I love you,' Tywin said simply.

'And I you,' she replied, the smile fading from her face as Prince Aerys stumbled to his feet once again, leered openly at the laces of her gown and downed another glass of wine before beginning to speak.

'My lord Father, have you not remarked the lateness of the hour?' Aerys shouted, 'Shall we not bed them and be done?'

Prince Jaehaerys looked so brittle that he might have been made out of porcelain; his thin fingers claw-like around his wine glass as his large, innocent violet eyes sought out his father the King. Remembering that King Aegon had retired hours ago, Jaehaerys sighed, grasped the table with one hand and hauled himself out of his seat, bowing politely to Tywin and Joanna before turning to his son.

'If you cannot hold your liquor any longer, Aerys,' Jaehaerys wheezed, looking on the verge of death despite his words, 'then by all means, let us bed them.'

Joanna's eyes met Tywin's as the din of drunken wedding guests pushing out their chairs and stumbling to the high table echoed from the floor to the rafters; and she was lifted out of her seat onto the shoulders of the male guests; Aerys shouting all the while.

'Come along, my ladies, don't be afraid to tear Lord Tywin's doublet; his father can always buy him a new one! That's the way, my lords, quick work, get her out of that gown, she won't be needing it any longer!'

Joanna craned her neck, but could no longer see or hear Tywin as she was born along on a wave of shouting men clawing at her clothes and touching every part of her that they could lay their hands on. Her septa had told her that it was a bride's duty to suffer the humiliation of her bedding with good grace.

_Well, _Joanna thought, _I have the rest of my life to be bloody graceful._

So she squirmed and scratched and punched as her shoes and stockings were removed and the front of her gown was undone, the guests grunting or shrieking in surprise each time her fist found its mark.

Gasping in horror, she felt a pair of hands touch her middle and run up her stomach, cupping her breasts and coming to her neck; and as she lashed out with her fists and her nails at Aerys, the only fool at court unafraid enough of Tywin to do such a thing, her dress came off completely, leaving her clad in nothing but her corset and shift.

'Gods be good, Lady Joanna!' Aerys was whooping loudly, 'you make me quite regret the abolition of the Lord's Right!'

'Tywin!' Joanna screamed, '_Tywin_!'

The sensible men protested, but the drunken ones far outnumbered them, and by the time Joanna was flung onto her wedding bed like a sack of potatoes, one roar from Tywin being sufficient to clear the entire room, Prince Aerys had managed to kiss the nape of her neck, her skin still smarting from his touch.

'I will kill them all,' Joanna muttered to herself as she discarded her ruined clothes, '_I will kill them all_.'

As she stood at the basin and scrubbed her neck raw, too angry to be embarrassed by her own nakedness, she heard Tywin at the window, muttering the same words like a prayer.

'I will kill them all. _I will kill them all._'


	8. Chapter 8

The sun's first rays peeped reluctantly through the window as a strong breeze filled the room with the typical King's Landing smell of garlic, stagnant water and occasionally, corpses, depending on how hot it was. The bedclothes pulled right over his head, Tywin listened to Joanna whispering at him, her body so closely entangled with his that he couldn't tell which limbs were his and which were hers. It was a pleasant feeling.

They had often shared a bed as children – before propriety and seriousness and growing up had deemed it inappropriate. Tywin thought it spectacularly ironic that he had had to get married in order to secure the right to be a child from time to time. From others, and from himself.

Joanna's eyes were wide and green and beautiful despite her lack of sleep, her flushed cheeks a storm of blood and life against the whiteness of her skin and her sleeping shift.

'Thank you,' she was murmuring softly, with a sweetness that almost made his chest burst.

'It was nothing,' Tywin mumbled in reply.

Joanna smiled sadly at him

'All the same. Thank you.'

'I could hardly bed you when you were….so upset.'

_When you were crying, _he had wanted to say; _when you cried so hard that you almost seemed to scream._

As Joanna leaned in and kissed him softly, Tywin remembered how he had stood listening to her curse Aerys and every highborn man in the city to the seven hells; and how he had waited and waited for the tears to come. When they eventually had, and she had laid her head on his chest, as she always did when she cried, he had repeated the words 'I will kill them all,' to her and to himself, trying hard to ignore the fact that she was stark naked and beautiful; and hoping against hope that she'd have the good grace not to notice that the laces of his breeches appeared to be misbehaving in a most audacious manner.

_Well_, he had thought to himself, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment, _at least I may take comfort in the fact that I am normal in some ways._

Tywin pushed his hair out of his eyes and watched Joanna poke her head above the covers and sit up as the room grew lighter and lighter; the sun turning the curtains, the floors, the furniture, and her, the colour of King Aegon's hair.

'Beautiful,' she remarked.

Sighing in annoyance as his hair once again flopped back into his eyes; Tywin raised an eyebrow at her, amused.

'All sunrises in King's Landing are like this,' he said, 'it's your own fault if you're in the habit of rising too late to enjoy them.'

'And if you're planning on getting up this early every morning, then we have a problem,' she shot back, throwing a pillow at him and laughing when he threw it right back at her, the impact knocking her down again and winding her.

'The next time you do that,' Joanna breathed, staring up at the ceiling, 'expect to be punished. Today, I will spare you, since it's our wedding morning. But only today.'

'I am grateful,' Tywin replied gravely, with a perfectly straight face.

Joanna rolled her eyes.

'What a cold fish you are. I hope you're more interesting than this when you do eventually get round to bedding me.'

Tywin promptly tossed his own pillow straight into her face and took advantage of the indignant squeal of surprise and the whirlwind of thrashing limbs to pin her to the mattress, kissing her deeply and hungrily; the way she opened her mouth almost desperately for him; the tip of her tongue as it rolled over his; claiming it; the beautiful, deep moan that arose from the back of her throat; her slender fingers jerking hard on his hair as she pulled him closer to her; and the way her skin seemed to want to melt into his thrilling each part of him, unbearably, to the marrow of his bones.

When Joanna gasped for breath, she did so like a woman exhilarated by the experience of half-drowning; her fingers still buried deep in Tywin's hair; holding onto the water that she knew she would return to time and time again; the exhilaration far greater than the danger.

'Cold fish, am I?' Tywin demanded breathlessly, with as much authority as he could.

Still too winded to respond, Joanna shook her head, smiling and closing her eyes until her breathing slowed.

'So,' she said, 'what do people usually do on their wedding mornings?'

'I believe we are required to engage in tedious formalities of visiting people and listening to them congratulate us,' Tywin replied with a sigh.

'Didn't they do all that yesterday?' Joanna grumbled, her bottom lip pouting sullenly.

'I also find such customs to be tedious and devoid of sense,' Tywin agreed sensibly, wondering briefly if she knew how funny she looked.

Joanna turned on her side to face him, smiling broadly.

_Beautiful._

'I have heard that a horse can always be relied upon to facilitate any escape,' she remarked conspiratorially.

In response, Tywin grinned, startling himself. It was his third smile in eighteen hours.

_I must be slipping._

The halls were empty, even of servants, as they began to make their way down to the stables; Tywin watching Joanna with a kind of fond disbelief as she enjoyed the sound of her riding boots on the stone floor and swung his hand back and forth as she held it in hers.

_How is it possible that this strange, whimsical creature has become my wife? _he thought to himself, _this impossibly intelligent, fiery, adult, child?_

They were walking down the long, winding corridor that circled the dry moat (mercifully empty of heads) when a familiar cackle of laughter drove all the colour and life from Joanna's face, and Prince Aerys came into view at the far end of the corridor, walking alone, his head flipped back in laughter at some unknown joke. Tywin whirled Joanna around immediately and pushed her through the nearest door (an armoury, he believed) before continuing towards Prince Aerys himself; praying that the prince was not in need of some specialised weapon; his heart haemorrhaging at the way Joanna had not even protested; had not even spoken. It was so unlike her to be silent. So unlike her.

'Lord Tywin!' Aerys greeted cheerfully.

'My prince,' Tywin returned, bowing smartly.

'And where is the beautiful Lady Joanna this morning?'

'She is…overtired, my lord.'

Aerys smiled with all the incandescent glory of Old Valyria, the silver threads of his hair dancing in his violet eyes.

'She must be exhausted after yesterday,' Aerys remarked, 'it was a glorious feast, was it not?'

'Indeed, my lord,' Tywin agreed courteously as he and Aerys began to circle the dry moat; the prince's eyes distant, yet warm.

'It reminded me so much of the day I wed my dear Rhaella,' Aerys remembered, 'she squirmed and fought in exactly the same way that your dear lady wife did.'

'During the bedding, my lord?' Tywin enquired.

'No,' Aerys replied, 'when I took her.'

Tywin noticed with alarm that his habitual composure was beginning to desert him. Though the muscles of his face were as serene and unaffected as they had ever been, there was a roaring in his chest and stomach that threatened to claw their way out of him and shower the entire Red Keep in blood; none of it his.

_The last time you lost your temper, you almost started a civil war. So control yourself._

Tywin nodded respectfully and once again began to listen to Prince Aerys blathering about his wedding.

'Rhaella was quite the minx in those days, Lord Tywin,' the prince reminisced, 'but then, all women were. She spent the entire evening dancing in a manner that would shame a Braavosi courtesan. Every man in that hall wanted her, which of course was what _she_ wanted. She wanted to be desired; to make men kill for a dance with her. Nobody died, of course, but it drove me mad with jealousy. A pleasant enough feeling, when one is accustomed to being driven mad by nothing but boredom at weddings. By the time the evening was over, I was positively on fire for her, but she succeeded in enflaming me still further by attempting to claw my eyes out the moment we were alone. Her cruelty was extraordinary. Until it occurred to me to simply take what was mine. It was the first time I had ever taken a woman from behind. And certainly not the last, you may be sure.'

'I see you are familiar with Dothraki wedding customs, my lord!' Tywin exclaimed with disconcerting delight, 'I had a passing interest in the subject myself a few years ago.'

Aerys paused, looking somewhat put out.

'You are mistaken, Lord Tywin,' he stated, 'I have little interest in such barbaric cultures.'

'Barbaric, but surprisingly beautiful,' Tywin continued, relishing the evident confusion on Prince Aerys' face as he tried to determine how the conversation had turned from his wedding night to the Dothraki, 'beautiful in a brutal, horribly uncomfortable sort of way.'

'Indeed?'

'Certainly. The wedding itself takes all day, and is little more than a riot of butchery and drunkenness performed for the entertainment of the couple. Men fight each other on the smallest pretext, and the fermented mare's milk they drink only makes them bolder and more prone to violence. This situation is rendered all the worse by the constant presence of veiled, half-clothed women that dance provocatively for the entire duration of the feast. If a warrior sees a woman that pleases him, he may mount her immediately in front of the entire assembly.'

Prince Aerys had the good grace to look scandalised and to remark that the very idea was horribly sordid.

'Not at all,' Tywin disagreed, 'It is only thanks to your ancestor King Jaehaerys that similar customs have not prevailed in Westeros. Though I have recently heard that we may expect a revival before too long. I must congratulate your grandfather the King on his respect for the past.'

Aerys turned white and attempted to speak. Tywin ignored him.

'Where was I? Ah yes, warriors mounting women. Now, if it occurs that two warriors desire the same woman, it is required that they fight to the death immediately. Fights may last for hours, or only for a few minutes, but when a warrior is victorious, he hacks the braid off his opponent as he watches him die, so that all the world may see his shame. How would one introduce a similar custom to Westeros, I wonder? No self-respecting Westerosi man braids his hair…ah!'

Aerys jumped at Tywin's exclamation, his face colouring slightly in embarrassment.

'Do you not see the solution, my lord?' Tywin asked, jovially clapping the prince on the shoulder.

'No, Lord Tywin, I do not,' Aerys replied in an admirably firm tone as he eyed Tywin's hand on his shoulder, but did not seem brave enough to tell him to remove it.

'Castration!' Tywin announced with satisfaction, his fingers still poised on Aerys' shoulder, 'Removing a man's braid in the Dothraki Sea brings as much shame upon him as removing his genitals does here.'

Tywin remembered bringing an entire hall of laughing bannermen to heel when he was ten with one flash of his eyes; and the exhilaration that had pulsed through his young body as he had watched mouths dropping open in surprise and eyes widening in fear. He could feel it building in him now, rising in his eyes, roaring in his voice, though he scarcely spoke louder than a whisper. He could see it in the way that Prince Aerys' mask of highly trained, courteous indifference was beginning to crack; in the firmness of his mouth, the hardness in his eyes and the way he clenched his fingers into fists before releasing them.

Tywin saw with satisfaction that the prince understood him.

_An intelligent enemy is a joy forever._

He continued.

'Introducing such a custom to Westerosi weddings would be nothing if not advantageous, my lord. As my lord has so correctly remarked, we are certainly not undersupplied with attractive young girls; or with drunken young men that fight over them; nor indeed with the boredom that results from all the tedious dancing and singing that one usually has to suffer at weddings. If a Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair, then one gelding should be quite sufficient to make even the dullest Westerosi wedding seem a triumph. I sincerely regret not having thought of this last night. It could easily have been the wedding of the century.'

Aerys' eyes were wide, lavender, and discomfited. His lips quivered like bats exposed to the light and his shoulder lurched involuntarily as Tywin let his hand drop; the sound resonating down the hallway, through the metal spikes of the dry moat and up into the blue.

'If you ever touch Joanna again, I'll have you gelded you while you sleep.'

Tywin looked into Aerys' eyes.

And he bowed, turned on his heel, and walked back to the armoury.


	9. Chapter 9

Time had become a debauched and reckless thing, fickle and uncaring, either unconscious of its own rules or choosing to ignore them. The Tragedy of Summerhall had ripped through it, puncturing the fabric; innumerable strands of silk and wool that never should have touched uniting in Tywin's mind.

He remembered standing by Joanna's side as the ashes of King Aegon and Prince Duncan were entombed in their mausoleum by the newly-crowned King Jaehaerys, whose sweetness and intelligence did not entirely succeed in masking the scent of impending death that he seemed to carry about with him like a stone. Melancholy had limped painfully in Tywin's veins, and he had been baffled, asking himself why he so mourned Aegon; a man too good and too kind to be an effective king; but still hated his own father for no worse crime than having the same sickness.

_You mourn Aegon because he saved you; from Casterly Rock and from yourself._

The marble slab had come down on the empty tomb with a crash and he had jumped; Joanna holding his hand all the tighter.

Prince Aerys' violet eyes turning lavender with fear at the edge of the dry moat always seemed to have occurred after Aegon's death rather than before it; and though Tywin knew it was not so; the memories persisted in taking on that order, making his head ache and his heart leap as he realised, yet again, that Aerys seemed to have taken his words at face value and had not addressed a word to Joanna beyond formalities and courtesies since that day. She was safe.

And somewhere between these two events, though he couldn't imagine where, Joanna had turned into his right hand. She had begun to sort his letters, answering most of them and reorganising his entire library, deeming the way that he left books stacked in piles about his chambers a disrespectful disgrace.

'What are you doing?' he had asked her the first time he had come upon her ripping through a two-foot-high pile of letters on his desk with her right index finger, a considerably smaller pile accumulating in her left hand.

'I'm sorting the important ones from the trivial,' she had replied, methodically opening each one of the letters in her left hand and skim-reading them.

'How do you know which is which?' he had demanded, rather annoyed that she was opening his letters without permission.

'Princess Rhaella gives her ladies a broad education,' she had said, still reading, 'your desk is a child's playtable compared to what hers looks like every morning.'

She had finished reading and had looked up at him, briefly telling him the contents of each letter in her hand.

'King Jaehaerys wishes to hear your opinion of the proposed new tax for wine merchants from the Arbour; Prince Doran Martell wishes to enter into a fashionable correspondence with you; Cousin Genna asks you to assassinate her husband (again); and Chataya respectfully informs you that your account is overdrawn for the third month in a row.'

'_What?_'

'Lighten up, Tywin.'

_Blasted impudence._

She was his right hand in that she knew as much as he did, if not more, about his own affairs; in that the desk in their chambers was now hers as much as it was his. She was his right hand in that she was his castellan, his steward, his chief counselor, his confidante, the honourary captain of his guards; and Tywin had not known a more terrifyingly efficient mistress of a household since his mother had been alive.

She was his right hand in that imagining the loss of her was like imagining the end of himself. She was his, and he was hers.

Tywin stood silently looking at her, feeling impossibly small and vulnerable despite his armour, not wanting to wake her up. Because if he did, it might very well be years before he would see her again.

_Your family's honour is more important than your own whims and wishes, and more important than any woman. Do not be a ridiculous boy._

She was lying on her stomach fast asleep, as naked as he felt, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathed, her skin prickling from cold. They had made love three times that night, and his loins still ached tenderly beneath the layers of plate and boiled leather that covered him like a shell. It was the only good kind of pain he knew.

_Standing here will not change anything_, he told himself, _and sentimentality will get you killed. You cannot afford to be sentimental now. Just do it. Do it._

Tywin walked to the bed, wincing at the clank and rustle of his armour, and gently pulled the covers over her again, his fingers softly brushing her skin as he tucked them around her shoulders.

_So much for not being sentimental._

She shifted beneath his touch and curled into a ball, smiling in her sleep.

Tywin took a deep breath, and shook her.

'Joanna.'


	10. Chapter 10

Joanna felt Tywin shake her awake and say her name, and she blinked at him as her eyes perceived constellations of candlelight burning small and insignificant in the otherwise pitch dark room.

'What time is it?' she mumbled.

'Three hours before dawn,' Tywin replied.

'Oh go _away,_' Joanna groaned, and pulled the covers over her head, grunting in annoyance when Tywin promptly pulled them off again.

She glared at him, and suddenly her heart was hammering bile instead of blood, and she was sitting up in bed as sleep fell from her like the linen sheets that fell from her body. Tywin's face was a grim mask against the crimson and gold of his armour, and he looked like a warrior, a killer of men, a commander of armies, a king. She hated it.

'Why are you wearing your armour?' Joanna asked softly.

Tywin took her hand.

'A raven came for me an hour ago, from Kevan,' he said, 'House Reyne and House Tarbeck have rebelled against Casterly Rock. They declare in no uncertain terms that they will no longer insult the honour of their Houses by swearing allegiance to a weak old fool who can barely rule over his own mistress, leave alone a kingdom. The Red Lion urges my father to recognise Castamere and Tarbeck Hall as a free and independent realm –'

'A lamentably small realm, wouldn't you say?' Joanna snorted.

'- and Lady Tarbeck simply dares my father to come after them,' Tywin finished quietly.

Joanna stared hard at Tywin, willing him to meet her eyes. But he did not, his eyes remaining fixed on the place where their two hands lay clasped together.

'So…you're going after them instead?' Joanna ventured reluctantly, fearing that saying the words would make them true.

'Yes,' Tywin nodded, confirming her fears with very little attempt at ceremony, 'tonight I ride for Casterly Rock to take command of our forces.'

'Why?' Joanna demanded, louder than she had intended.

Tywin blinked at her in surprise.

'What do you mean?'

'Why it is_ you_ that must take command of our forces?'

Tywin looked slightly hurt that she had not understood immediately.

'Asking sixty thousand men to fight for my father will accomplish nothing but losing this war before it has begun,' he explained.

'They need not fight for your father,' she said desperately, 'there are older commanders, all of them experienced in battle. Why must you take command?'

Joanna knew the answer before Tywin opened his mouth to reply.

'I will be Lord of Casterly Rock someday,' Tywin pronounced, 'when that happens, I must command absolute loyalty. I will not accomplish that by acting like a green boy who does what other people tell him; a coward and a fool who allows his commanders to win his wars for him while he cowers beneath Casterly Rock, fighting in tourneys and reading his books. When people speak the name of Lannister, they do so with a laugh and a sneer. By taking command of our armies in this campaign, and by winning, whatever the cost, I will restore our family's honour. Our name will be what it once was: a name to be spoken with fear. With fear comes power. With fear comes respect.'

'Making people love you will bring you both those things, and with much less shedding of blood,' Joanna replied, disliking all this talk of fear.

'You yourself told me that Father deserved my protection,' Tywin scowled impatiently.

'So that's why you're doing this? Because you love your father?'

'I love our family. It amounts to the same thing.'

Joanna's skin crawled. She was accustomed to Tywin's refusing to acknowledge his love for his father, and to his constant proud words about family and legacy. But tonight she seemed to hear them, to really hear them, for the first time in her life, and the sound they made did not please her. Perhaps it was because Tywin was clothed in armour as he spoke the words rather than in a doublet and breeches. Or perhaps it was really his voice that was clad in steel; a metallic hardness emerging from its core that she had never heard him use when talking to her. Wrath, disappointment, heartbreak and hopelessness: she had heard them all before. But this. This was something new. Something grown up. Something…ominous.

'So,' Joanna continued sharply, pushing her thoughts aside, 'it is for love of our family, and for no other reason, that you would turn yourself into the terror of the Westerlands; that you would risk getting yourself killed before you even come of age?'

'I would be proud of such an accomplishment,' Tywin replied stubbornly.

'Of being a terror or of getting killed?'

'Frightened bannermen are respectful bannermen!'

Joanna's temper flared at his failure to answer the question.

'You can't frighten anyone if you're lying dead in a ditch somewhere in Castamere!' she exclaimed, 'you're good with a sword; brilliant, even; but you've never been a squire, you've never fought in a battle, and you've never commanded so much as a team of scribes!'

'I thank you for your confidence in me, my lady,' Tywin declared icily.

'Don't twist things, Tywin!'

'I am doing nothing of the sort. You have made your opinion on the subject clear, and it disappoints me. Gravely. Do you really care so little for the restoration of our family name that you would have me stay here and let other men fight my battles for me?'

Sometimes Joanna wanted to strangle him. But when she reached out her hand, her fingers touched Tywin's cheek instead of closing around his neck, and she was grateful that he did not flinch away from her.

'I have nothing but the deepest respect for your desire to restore our family name,' she said gravely, 'but it means nothing to me if you die trying.'

Tywin's lips parted.

'Joanna –' he started.

'If I had to choose between the family honour and you, I would choose you,' she declared, with a firmness she was rather proud of, 'and I know that you would do the same, for all this blathering about legacy.'

It was a bold claim to make, and as sure as she was that he loved her, Joanna expected Tywin to immediately deny that he would do any such thing; to tell her to grow up and not to be a fool; or to joke about it and say that he'd put her on the first boat to Astapor if it would gain their House just a little more honour. Instead, his hands were winding around her back and he was kissing her like it was his last night in this world; pressing her so closely to him it hurt.

His armour felt freezing against her skin, and his sword was jabbing into her side, but his hot, swollen mouth drowned her in wine, her entire body seeming to contract into that one space where his teeth and his tongue were; tasting her, smothering her breath and her reason. When she fell backwards, he fell with her, and he was so heavy, so uncomfortable and so cold; but his kisses down her neck seared so beautifully that they almost made her scream.

'Tywin, please don't go,' Joanna murmured, tears forming in her eyes, 'I love you; please don't go.'

Tywin's hands framed her face, and his eyes were green and gold as they met hers.

'I love you more than you can imagine,' he whispered back, 'but I have no choice.'

As she sat watching him pack the last of his personal effects, she remembered the last time he had left her; how she had screamed through the door and refused to say goodbye; a stubborn little idiot of ten. She wouldn't do that again.

So when she accompanied him to their chamber door, she tried to think of something fitting to say; something wives were expected to say to lord husbands that they might never see again. But her mind remained blank and empty; empty of everything except who she really was; of everything except what Joanna Lannister of Casterly Rock, and no other, would say.

Joanna handed Tywin his helmet.

'Don't get killed,' she said shortly.

Tywin smiled at her.

'Yes, my lady,' he replied, and closed the door behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

In his mind and in his flesh he saw and felt the fire, the battle fury.

His captains accepted his command without a word and in their eyes he saw respect and trembling, and nods and reverences, no smiles, no laughter, and he felt like a giant among men.

And the maps burned golden in the torchlight like the gold and might of Casterly Rock, and his armour was red and gold like his heart and the carpets and cushions of his tent were red and blue like the Houses that lay before him waiting to be swept away like leaves, to be burnt in the inferno against them, against his father, against the fathers and the ancestors of the men behind the walls, against the laughs that had echoed around him before turning into hands that had grasped his heart between their hard iron fingers and had killed it in his chest while he wailed and screamed.

In his mind and in his flesh he saw and felt the fire, the battle fury.

And he was faster than them all, and better, and quieter, as blue moonlight crept across the plain on the seventh night and he sat silent, like iron, on his warhorse, the host rustling like grass around him, reed-thin and peaceful like the sleep ensnaring the men behind the walls who had never thought and had never imagined and would not, ever again, as he gave the signal, and they marched, and ran and screamed not at all; a mighty serpent of blackness and darkness and death that he watched trample the blue as they advanced.

And the sky was gold and the fire was red as trebuchets roared out flame and stone that tore at the walls, and he was faster even than the blaze as he thundered out across the plain amongst his men, watching the blue disappear beneath his horse's hooves, watching it fade from the sky as the gold and the dark suffocated it.

And the gates were open and his men were following him, knowing it was him, and the ants and the insects were beneath him, clawing at him with their pincers and their little brittle legs that glanced off him because he was faster than them, and better than them, and his sword was a flame by itself that danced through all of them, sending them down into the dark that trampled the blue or up into the gold that suffocated it. And his lust for the heat and the fire grew as he killed one, and another, and another, the tiniest part of his senses listening to the sound of the mud and the stone, the mines, the mines that had been tearing at the blue for the past week while he fought in the light, though tonight in the dark, bringing out more and more fighting men, making such a racket such a symphony of red and gold that the blue could not see how their foundations crumbled, to dust, to nothingness, to the dirt beneath his feet. And the dirt and the foundations were men as well as heads and arms and legs rolled past him and under him and his sword was a red beacon that shone and steamed in the dark, the dark that murdered the blue.

In his mind and in his flesh he saw and felt the fire, the battle fury.

The sweetness of death, the scent of it, the feel of it, the clang it sent ringing through his hand and right inside him, better than a human voice. And screams for mercy that were silenced, again and again, howling out before being sealed back up with blood, and bone, and flesh.

And two visions of himself, steadfastness and anger, Kevan and Tygett, one larger than himself, one thinner, riding to him twinned in crimson and gold, the crimson and gold that destroyed the blue beneath and above him, and 'the miners are ready, my lord,' and a race, a call, a call, through the blood, back to the blue from whence they came, from where he had sat silent, like iron, on his warhorse, the host rustling like grass around him, reed-thin and peaceful like the sleep ensnaring the men behind the walls who had never thought and had never imagined and would not, ever again.

In his mind and in his flesh he saw and felt the fire, the battle fury.

And he watched the gold move across the sky and the black trample the blue beneath him for the second time that night, and the walls and the hall, Tarbeck Hall, and the flames. And the screams, the screams as the hall came down, of men entombed in stone, and mountains of stone, and mountains of men, and women now, and children, and tears in his eyes, and a smile, a smile that caressed his face like a gentle breeze making the blood without him flow and the blood within him soar, and 'your orders, my lord?' and 'put them all to the sword,' and the joy and the ecstasy and the carving of smiles onto dead faces and the disappointment the displeasure at there being so few left to kill, at the stone that had killed the blue while the red and the gold looked on, but there was no other way he thought, but there was no other way. And there is always Castamere, there is always the red, the red lion that will fight its twin and the savagery and the blood that will flow, that will drip, that will run, through their House and into the earth, a tomb not of stone, but of flesh and bone.

And in his mind and in his flesh he saw and felt the fire, the battle fury.


	12. Chapter 12

The little girl's eyes were like the embers of a fire just before it died, wide and afraid, gasping for a breath that she knew would never come again, her white hands clutching her House colours; the red and silver of House Reyne. Tywin drove his sword into her throat and watched her die _and his chest was like hoarfrost as her blood sprayed both his front and hers, red on red on red _when Tarbeck Hall had fallen, he had been like an animal drunk on bloodshed, roaring like an undead horror from the deepest of the seven hells as he rode down life after life, entering like a shade into the soul of every last murdering stone that had crushed that House to ashes; his entire being aflame, uncontrollable, alive _his arm lacerated down to the bone spilled ice across his armour, red ice that burned like winter, like the Red Lion who lay dead and mutilated in the forecourt of Castamere, his body resting three feet from his head, his mouth ripped out, his teeth his tongue, he had bathed in his blood he had wanted to he had_ Many times towards the end of the slaughter, the more experienced of his commanders had urged him to stop. _**'The battle is won, my lord. There is no need for further butchery. High born hostages bring a good price. Good servants and soldiers will always be of use' **__He kills an old man with wise eyes in a window seat the blood the red spraying and dripping and dissolving across the book he holds, a scholar like him but old a rebel a Reyne who spits at him as he dies and he moves to the next room almost slipping in the red and the white, the white flesh, the hacked-off limbs like tree stumps like rotting fish, and little Joanna in his mind with her wide green eyes and her voice beyond her five years so long ago 'Don't kill him! _Please!_ Please don't!'_ But at Tarbeck Hall, he had not called off the attack until every last man, woman and child lay dead, and even after that he had hunted through the ruins himself like a dog seeking carrion, until Kevan had emptied an entire barrel of water over his head and had screamed at him that there was no one and nothing left to kill _But in the next room a girl cowers against the wall in tears wearing the red and the silver around her neck the rubies the red rubies of her House, her hands and cheeks alive but she does not say a word and he rips out her stomach a butcher a conqueror while she gasps and screams. _

He had felt exhilarated and ashamed.

_Succumbing to the battle fury makes you no better than a common footsoldier. Unleashing yourself in such a way weakens you. You cannot let it happen again. You will not. You will do this as a lucid, thinking man, because what you are doing is right._

But he could not be lucid and he could not think. His soldiers courted death around him, and slew, and raped, and he moved from one room to the next like a wraith, his sword an icy flame that guided him in the dark. His hands were so wet with blood that his sword began to slip in his hands and he could not wipe them on his armour or his boots or on anything around him _because it is all soaked drenched inundated with the blood the red and _he scorns at the memory of the golden little girl screaming 'Don't kill him! Please! Please don't!' because she did not understand though _now she understands, understands better than the frost and the ecstasy and the silver and the red that this must be done for honour for vengeance to protect the family to defend my blood, and the necessity of it the knowledge is exhilarating is serene and still, it puts me at peace as my sword does my work, unfurling a banner of peace of red that stinks and slips and stains nothing, not me, not my armour, because it is red, red like the blood like the lion, like Castamere._

He reaches the top of the Keep, the entire family is dead, and he strolls back down again to survey his work, a red stone carpet guiding his passage past rooms, through halls and down stairs. His soldiers stop their raping and their pillaging as he passes, saluting him, and he bids them continue like a god of death, a destroyer, the sound of screaming like music in his ears, like a song.

'Have some of the men bring the bodies of the family down into the forecourt,' he tells Kevan, whom he finds standing beneath the gates of Castamere, a flagon of wine clasped in his hands.

His brother starts at the sight of him, but recovers quickly, beautiful and terrible in his red and crimson armour, bowing to him as he would to the Lord of Casterly Rock and opening his mouth to speak.

'To be burned, my lord?'

Tywin looks up at the Keep once more, and in his mind he crushes its grim grey stones to powder, so that they may lodge within his blood and travel into his heart.

'No,' he responds, 'they are to be loaded into an open supply wagon for the journey back to Casterly Rock.'

'Even the women and children, my lord?'

Kevan's face is silent and tranquil, but Tywin knows him. This idea does not please him. He considers grasping his shoulder, or speaking some words of encouragement that will remind his little brother that it is still him, Tywin, his brother, his brother who loves him.

But he does nothing of the sort and nods grimly in response to Kevan's question.

'Yes. Even the women and children.'

When he returns to his tent, he looks into the glass. He does not recognise himself.

Wet, slick blood clings to his face, to his hands, to every inch of exposed skin like sap. His hair persists in falling into his eyes; bloodshot, sticky strands of it puncturing his eyes, the gold invisible, turned to crimson, turned to red. He imagines himself standing at the foot of the Keep as the throat of each Reyne is cut above him, their blood flowing into a scarlet waterfall that sheets down to earth, to him, cleansing him, setting him free. Even his eyelashes are red. They turn his vision to ruby silk.

Kevan rejoins him.

'It is done, my lord.'

Tywin utters not a word, continuing to study his reflection.

Kevan gently grasps his shoulder.

'Tywin,' he whispers gently, 'should I have a bath prepared for you?'

His eyes meet Kevan's in the glass, _and he smiles at him widely, and_

'_No,' he says, 'I shall wait a while longer, I think.'_


	13. Chapter 13

Tywin had not even sent in to Father before ordering that the corpses of the Reynes be strung up above the gates of Casterly Rock. As the bodies had bounced into the empty air, the ropes around their necks holding them up, the Lannister army had thundered its approval from the plains beneath the castle in a long and mighty roar that had ceased as quickly it had begun.

_Disciplined men. Lannister men. My own_.

Looking down on them from his place below the gates, Tywin's heart had swelled with pride, and he had watched them for a moment more, almost sorry that he had to dismiss them.

_There will be other campaigns. You have won back the Lannister honour, and now you must maintain it. That will mean more blood on your hands at some point in the future. You would be foolish to think otherwise._

'_Tywiiiiiin!_ Why must you insist on driving me into an early grave, you ridiculous, inconsiderate boy?'

Relishing the audible gasps of horror emanating from the ranks, Tywin had turned to greet his lord father, and had respectfully reminded him that he was six-and-ten, and a boy no longer.

'Yes, you might very well be six-and-ten, but that gives you no right to break my maester's rules by exciting me so!' Father had persisted, 'keeping calm is all that prevents me from entering the grave!'

'Avoiding the grave is a noble goal indeed, my lord,' Tywin had acquiesced.

'_But how am I to have a hope of reaching it if you insist on stringing corpses above my gates?'_

As Father had continued to rant about his health and his nerves, Tywin had realised that he felt no shame and no embarrassment at being chastised like a child in front of his own army; no anger, no pity, no annoyance; merely a kind of deadness, a lull, an absence of fire and flame.

_Perhaps it is because he is no longer an embarrassment or a torment. He is simply a ridiculous old man who is trying to maintain control. He must be aware that the first three companies, at least, can very likely hear each word he says._

'So cut down those corpses before I command the men to do it myself!' Father had finished, and he had waited, arms folded, for Tywin to do as he was told.

A thunderous silence had swiftly descended, and Tywin had sat unaffected and rather bored, wondering, detachedly, whom his captains would be most likely to obey.

_I am their commander; he is their liege lord. An unenviable decision to make._

_Either way, those corpses will remain where they are. Even if I have to knock the old man down, I refuse to accept that I have lost fifteen thousand men regaining the family honour, only to have him besmirch it again by treating the corpses of rebels with respect._

Then somewhere out on the plain, a soldier had cried out 'Lannister!', and the rest of them had begun to take up the call.

'Lannister! Lannister! Lannister! Lannister!'

Kevan and Tygett had looked meaningfully at him, but Tywin had refused to acknowledge his troops, not even deigning to salute them.

_Only jesters and singers require applause._

But his heart had thundered harder and harder as their cries had grown louder and louder, his expression never departing from his mask of white marble that was more to be feared than loved.

_These men serve our House and they are proud to do so_, he thought, _the legacy of Castamere will live on in the stories they tell. Because of them, no one will ever forget what happens when sheep bleat at lions and presume to call it war. Their memory and their fear are far more important than who they choose to obey today. Though of course I would prefer it if it were me._

And the fists of his men had punched the air, and their swords and their spears had rained down on their shields, and a new battle cry had been shouted to the horizon; flitting here and there like a rebellious child until it was rolling and roaring off the tongues of every one of the forty-five thousand soldiers lined up on the plains before Casterly Rock; two syllables; harmonious, simultaneous, deadly.

'Tywin! Tywin! Tywin! Tywin!'

And Father's face had turned pale as Tywin had saluted them, allowing himself a smile.

_It may be true that only jesters and singers require applause. But gods be good, I do love this._

The memory still rang zealously in Tywin's ears as he dismounted beneath the shadow of the Red Keep, handing the reins of his horse to a waiting groom. The wound to his arm was deep and excruciatingly painful, and he winced slightly as he walked out of the stables and into the Keep, joyful and terrified at the prospect of seeing Joanna, to whom he had not written once since his departure.

_She will understand. She feels as I do. The family name is more important than anything. _

Thinking of Joanna, he remembered the laughs echoing around the practice yard at Casterly Rock eleven long years ago; remembered himself plunging the tip of his wooden sword into little Lord Tarbeck's face while Joanna screamed 'Don't kill him! _Please!_ Please don't!' Even then, he had known that it was only through blood that honour could be restored. He had just been too young to understand.

When he pushed open the door to his chambers, Joanna was standing regally at the window with her back to him, examining the closed wooden shutters that filled the room with a gloomy crimson radiance that seemed unnatural at midday. Her hair fell undressed to her shoulders, and she wore a simple gown of deepest black, her tiny feet peeping charmingly out from beneath the hem of her dress.

She did not move from the window, and her voice as she spoke was soft and pleading.

'Tell me it is not true.'


	14. Chapter 14

Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

She was inconsolable.

As soon as she spoke the words, all sound seemed to disappear from Tywin's world, and he watched as she shifted, transplanted, displaced herself about the room, her mouth yawning open in one silent scream after another. Her pale and ghastly face was contorted in horror, and her eyes were red, streaming Tears of Lys down her face and into her skin.

The light behind the shutters turned the room crimson, and she paced and turned towards him and away from him; words like 'coward' and 'animal' erupting out of the silence; and Tywin felt he had returned to the scene, to Castamere, to the red mist that had kissed his face and filled his eyes; except this time she was with him, watching him; standing beside the pool of ruby shadows in which he saw the face of the little girl he had killed, her eyes young and afraid and blue in death.

And suddenly, he could no longer bear the reflection of the red on her face; could not endure the thought of her seeing what he remembered, seeing what he had done, though he was not ashamed of it, and he threw open the shutters, letting in the light. Joanna stormed across the room and slammed them shut again, screaming that the Tywin she knew would not murder women and children like they were pigs at some market; asking him again and again who he was, what he was, what he had become, what he had done and why; calling on all seven gods to bear witness that a name built on dead children was no honourable name at all. And he shouted silently back at her for what felt like hours; about restoring the family name, about uniting the Westerlands behind him, about doing what needed to be done. And he would do it again for their name, he said; he would murder a thousand more children; gladly; immediately; for the honour of their House.

Then her face lost all colour, even red, even white, and her cheekbones turned to gashes in the half-darkness, and her mouth yawned open in a groan and a cry as she sank into the red shadows, blood pooling around her feet. Real blood.

She screamed and pushed him away each time he tried to help her; her blood-stained hands defiling his doublet and his face, the smell of the redness invading him, running him through. Then the maester arrived and turned him from the room, and he was too weak and too fearful to argue with him. He paced the corridor outside their chambers for hours, something inside him gasping for breath and dying as he listened to his wife scream and cry as their child was lost to them, as surely as though Tywin had killed it himself. He wondered, briefly, why she had not told him.

_If you were a woman, would you tell a slaughterer of innocents that you were with child?_

He realised, then, that to her, he had vanished; his entire being annihilated by one bloody act. Annihilated in her eyes, and whose eyes truly mattered but hers?

_I do not regret what I have done. Not even now. Am I wicked?_

He was spared his own answer as the door swung open, the maester's lips moving, but no sound emerging as he drew Tywin aside to let the septa pass discreetly, a tiny bundle of white sheets clasped in her arms. The maester had large brown eyes and a kindly face, but Tywin could not hear a word he said. His eyes and ears were full of that tiny bundle, silent and lifeless as it was carried out of sight like a disgrace, a humiliation, a memory to be disposed of quickly, and forgotten.

When he pushed into the room where Joanna lay, sound rushed back into him, Joanna's breathing breaking like waves against a rocky coast, the sound of her tears as they dried on her cheeks streaming through his ears like a waterfall. She stared straight ahead of her, at the window, at the wall, at anything but him. She looked dead. And he was the one who had almost killed her.

His own sobs were like screams in his ears, terrifyingly loud; and the tears branded him, tearing holes in his marble mask and burning it like acid, so that nothing remained but a molten mound of ash.

'Tywin,' he heard her murmur, 'Tywin. Come here. I need you now.'

When he took her hand it seemed to freeze in his, the smell of blood still fresh on her skin. He condemned himself in half-words and half-sentences; the redness of the room and of himself ghosting out of his mouth in meaningless utterances and bundles of nothing.

_Even now, I do not doubt that I did the right thing, _he thought, _even now, at this very moment. I am everything she says I am. Everything she fears I am. My pride has done this. My pride has killed our child; has almost torn asunder what is…what is best in me. _

And she was what was best in him. He saw that now. Without her, he had no conscience, no…no goodness.

Just thinking the word was strange to him.

_But what are men without goodness? Savages. Animals. Myself as I was, at Castamere._

'Tywin,' Joanna said weakly, looking into his eyes, 'Tywin.'

'Yes?' he replied, kneeling next to her.

'Promise me that you will never do something like this again.'

Without hesitation, he promised.

Notes

Chapter title is from Bhagavad Gita 11: 32, made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer


	15. Chapter 15

Epilogue

It was raining. The sea swirled about his knees like molten glass, transparent in his grief, boiling like the tears of the twisted, gnarled child in his arms who screamed out his existence to the heavens, mocking him like a curse from the gods. Somewhere in the castle above him, Joanna lay dead, and he felt so cold, so cold that he could hardly feel his legs; but he hurt, he hurt so badly, he burned. He fought against the pain, more out of instinct than anything else, and his blood froze and transfigured into shards of ice that grazed the walls of his veins as they passed through him, every heartbeat an agony.

It was barely midday, and yet the skies grew darker and darker; thunder echoing far out to sea; Nature itself rebelling against the entry of this child into the world, a child born a kinslayer and a murderer, a defiler of innocence and beauty.

Tywin smirked. He had done such things. He had spilled so much blood. Thousands of smallfolk still refused to meet his eyes for fear of being struck dead by them. Yet after all this, in spite of all this, Joanna, his wife, his love, his only friend, had been taken from him by nothing more threatening than a stunted, helpless little creature that could not even hold a knife.

Tywin stared down into the water.

_The boy is a Lannister. Honour demands that he live._

But he gripped the child around its middle and neck and listened to it scream as he prepared to give it the waves.

_Avenging her is more important to me than honour. _

He did not find the idea of killing a child any more repugnant than the previous time he had done it, eight long years ago, at Castamere. Only this time, his heart and his blood said nothing to him as he lowered the child to the water and imagined the sea flooding into the howling mouth, swallowing it up and silencing it forever.

'Don't kill him! _Please!_ Please don't!'

Tywin cried out, and almost lost his balance, the waves becoming the sky as he struggled, the sky becoming the place he stood.

But he was standing exactly where he had been, the sea swirling around his knees, a screaming abomination in his arms and a small, high sound from long ago calling to him; a sound in which he heard iron and steel, but also compassion, the voice of one born to command.

And though he knew that it could not be; that she was gone and could never return; he whirled around with hope in his chest, and ridicule at himself that he dared to hope at all.

A small, pale figure stood on the beach looking out at him, its arms folded tightly against the cold, its hair falling into its eyes in ribbons and ribbons of thick spun gold, beautiful despite the rain.

It was Jaime.

The boy's clothes were drenched, and he was shivering visibly. But he fiercely persisted in ignoring his own wretchedness, and shouted once again to his father.

'Don't kill him! _Please!_ Please don't!'

Tywin turned once again to the horizon, and looked down into the child's face for the first time since its birth. Its eyes were mismatched, one green and one black. And yet they were Joanna's: large, bright, and almond-shaped, their irises the texture of rain and fresh leaves, with a softness that could he not define or explain, and a mischief about them that seemed to glitter already, as Joanna's eyes always did when she felt like a good fight.

_The child is half an hour old. You are talking nonsense._

Starting at the sudden feeling of a powerful grip on his arm, Tywin looked to his side, then downwards in surprise as he saw that it was only Jaime, holding onto him with the strength of a grown man. His son stood waist-deep in the water beside him, his lips turning blue from cold, but his green eyes were like wildfire; angry, and pleading.

'Father, p-p-p-p-please,' Jaime managed to say through trembling lips, 'p-p-p-please don't kill him. Please don't.'

And suddenly Tywin's knees were buckling beneath him, and Jaime was squealing in alarm and seizing him as he fell to his knees in the water, holding him tightly as the baby howled between them, louder even than the wind.

'Don't kill him,' Tywin heard Jaime plead once more, 'please, Father, please don't.'

'I won't,' Tywin murmured against Jaime's shoulder, 'I won't. I can't.'

Notes

That's all, folks! Thank you so much for the reviews and the encouragement; they have made things much more awesome. Love you all!


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